Three-Part Series on Violence, Economic Justice, and Community Solutions: Part 3 - What Works
Roderick D.S. Wheeler
President & Chief Strategy Officer/Author of Stand In Solidarity
Part Three: What Actually Works
On July 5, 2025, a mass shooting in downtown Indianapolis left two teenage boys dead and five others wounded, all aged 15 or 16, transforming a holiday weekend into heartbreaking loss. Violence just didn't impact the Hoosier capital; all across the nation, cities and communities faced similar tragedies over the 4th of July weekend. However, just three weeks later, and while writing this third article in this series, on July 27, Indianapolis was hit again. A drive‑by shooting on the northeast side injured five young people between the ages of 10 and 19. According to multiple news reports, all were shot in the same subdivision; at least four may have been inside a vehicle at the time.
These tragedies, mostly impacting Black youth and young men, are not isolated incidents; they are part of a pattern the first two editions of this series aimed to illuminate: violence is not random or inexplicable, but rather the predictable outcome of systems that have long disinvested in Black communities. In our final part of The Impact Report series, we spotlight data-driven, community-led solutions that break cycles of violence to build safer, more resilient, and more just communities all across America.
What Actually Works: A Roadmap for Community Safety and Economic Justice
If we are serious about reducing crime and violence, especially among Black youth and young men, we must go beyond surface-level fixes and confront the systemic barriers at the root of the problem. That means we must commit to (a.) investing in education systems that prepare young people for success rather than funneling them into the school-to-prison pipeline, (b.) reconnecting marginalized youth to meaningful, living-wage employment, and (c.) dismantling the structural racism that locks entire communities out of opportunity and suppresses the American economy from growing.
Where racism is allowed to persist, and where Black men are systematically excluded from economic participation, violence inevitably follows, not because of inherent criminality, but because of entrenched inequality.
According to the CDC, homicide is the leading cause of death for Black males between the ages of 14 and 34, a devastating reflection of systemic and generational marginalization within Black communities.
Addressing only the symptoms ( e.g., mandatory curfews, arresting youth for status offenses, and only requiring parents to keep young people at home) without dismantling the root causes will not only address violence in our communities, but it will also not improve the economic vitality of our cities.
In our first article of this series, we highlight research that shows violent crime rates are identical, regardless of race, due to economic marginalization. Economic marginalization also harms local economies, effectively reducing the ability of those excluded, particularly Black residents, to consume, save, invest, and pay taxes. Addressing symptoms does little to heal the hidden wounds of racism, nor will it create the conditions for shared prosperity and safety for all Americans.
The Overlooked Power of Education
Research confirms that graduating from high school significantly reduces the probability of incarceration, while boosting employment prospects and economic participation. In fact, if the national male graduation rate increased by just 5%, the country would save an estimated $18.5 billion annually in crime-related costs.
Our research underscores that low educational attainment, particularly among Black men, not only drives overrepresentation in prisons but also represents a massive loss of productive citizenship and economic contribution.
By improving graduation rates and removing barriers to education and training programs, communities can lower incarceration rates, public costs associated with arrests, strengthen families, and expand the workforce in ways that benefit both individuals and the broader economy. Education is one of the most powerful crime prevention tools we have. Yet across America, the data are grim:
Nearly 70% of local jail inmates and 67% of state prisoners are high school dropouts.
For Black male high school dropouts, nearly 1 in 4 is incarcerated or institutionalized. Among young Black men aged 20–34, more are incarcerated (37%) than are employed (26%) in America.
Approximately 25% of all arrests happen in schools and by School Resource Officers. A first-time arrest during high school nearly doubles the chance of dropping out, and involvement in the justice system makes youth four times more likely to drop out and be marginally connected to the workforce into adulthood.
This pipeline from school pushout to prison deepens economic marginalization and fuels the cycles of violence we see in cities like my beloved hometown of Indianapolis.
A Life Sentence by Another Name
Many people who enter prison for the first time struggle to break free from the justice system and ultimately become lifelong prisoners.
Nationally, approximately 95% of inmates will be released back to their communities at some point in time. However, 75% of those released will eventually return to prison or jail at some point in their lifetime, often not for committing new crimes, but for technical rule violations like missed check-ins or curfew breaches.
The social and financial costs of imprisoning people in institutions and our local communities are staggering: more than $33,000 per year to incarcerate one person in the US, and approximately $200 billion nationally when factoring in direct and indirect costs.
Most importantly, for many, a first conviction and imprisonment results in a “life sentence by another name”—a life-long cycle of justice involvement and incarceration fueled by systemic racism, injustice, over policing economically marginalized communities, systemic barriers to education, employment, and community reintegration.
A Data-Driven Strategy to Achieve Community-Wide Impact
Data analysis from cities all across America has found that typically, in our respective communities, a small network of offenders commits most violent crimes. However, data-driven strategies like Boston’s Operation Ceasefire and the Indianapolis Violence Reduction Partnership (IVRP) show how focusing on those small networks can dramatically reduce violence.
In Indianapolis, the IVRP found that violence was “largely due to young men, both victims and suspects, with extensive criminal histories, having previously been convicted of either a gun or drug-related charge, and who were also associated with groups of chronic offenders”.
By focusing on these networks, offering either a pathway to economic reconnection or jail, Indianapolis achieved double-digit reductions in violent crime in a short period of time.
The lesson is clear: data-driven, community-based crime prevention works because it targets the small populations most responsible for the violence, rather than criminalizing entire neighborhoods. These approaches allow cities to focus resources strategically, interrupt cycles of retaliation, and build safety through coordinated intervention and community partnership.
Three Pillars to Reduce Crime
As highlighted in our book, The Right Time to Do Right: Community-Based Crime Prevention and Juvenile Justice, some of the most effective strategies for reducing violent crime are not rooted in harsher punishment, but in community-based, data-driven approaches that address the underlying conditions driving violence.
Community matters, not just as a talking point, but as a measurable force for public safety and resilience. Research consistently shows that when neighborhoods are reconnected to education, employment, and opportunity, crime rates decline, families stabilize, and local economies grow stronger.
Wheeler Social Impact’s research has found that three key strategies can significantly reduce crime and its costs to cities:
Using education as a powerful prevention strategy, particularly by increasing Black male high school graduation rates and connecting them to postsecondary and employment opportunities.
Breaking the cycle of recidivism, to reduce the long-term entanglement of individuals with the justice system and the lifetime costs associated with first-time offenders becoming lifelong prisoners.
Identifying and intervening with the small networks responsible for a disproportionate share of violent crime often involves individuals with prior convictions for gun or drug offenses.
In cities like Indianapolis and Boston, we’ve seen the power of these approaches firsthand. Nationally, community-based crime prevention initiatives have demonstrated the impact of cross-sector collaboration. These efforts bring together law enforcement, nonprofits, educators, employers, and residents to tackle violence with solutions shaped by local realities, not political headlines.
The evidence is clear:
Data-driven strategies like focused deterrence and problem-oriented policing help identify the small networks driving the majority of serious violence, allowing for precision interventions rather than broad, punitive sweeps.
Community-based supports, including re-entry programs, education initiatives, and family-focused services, address the root causes of crime, economic marginalization, not just its symptoms.
Educational and employment interventions, especially those aimed at increasing Black male high school graduation and employment rates, are among the most cost-effective public safety investments available to prevent violent crimes in our communities.
It is important to note that no single program, policy, or arrest strategy can be effective in isolation. Unilateral strategies do not work. What succeeds are collective, integrated, sustained, and community-wide strategies that combine rigorous data analysis with the wisdom, coordinated collective impact efforts, and effective grassroots leadership and resident engagement strategies.
Collective and coordinated community-based and data-driven strategies are uniquely positioned to reverse the effects of generational marginalization and systemic racism, not only reducing violence but helping rebuild the social and economic foundations of thriving, resilient communities.
Conclusion
The violence that claims our young Black men is not random, nor is it inevitable. It is the foreseeable outcome of community disinvestment, economic exclusion, and systemic inequities that for too long have been allowed to persist in Black communities. Yet as this series has shown, the solutions are within reach. Communities that invest in education, expand pathways to meaningful work, reduce recidivism, and intervene where violence is most concentrated among small networks are proving that safer communities are possible.
The choice before us is clear: we can continue reacting to tragedy after tragedy and address the symptoms of community violence, or we can commit to dismantling the root causes of harm and building a foundation of safety and opportunity in our Black communities that will improve safety across America in general. If we have the courage to invest in what actually works, we can break the cycle of violence, grow our local economy, and create communities where EVERY young person has the chance not just to survive, but to thrive.
Thank You for Reading
Thank you for joining us for our three‑part series on Violence, Economic Justice, and Community Solutions. Together, we’ve explored the painful realities behind recurring violence, the systemic inequities that fuel it, and the community‑driven solutions that truly work. To reduce violence in our community, we need to re-engage our males in institutions of empowerment, particularly education and employment. Your engagement matters. Change begins with understanding, and grows when we act together to build safety, dignity, and opportunity for all. - Wheeler Social Impact LLC